To: jnet@democracyinaction.org

Hi Jeanette,

I am writing to you on behalf of The Icarus Project, a non-profit, radical mental health project. The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of 'mental illness' rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework.  Our work encompasses peer-support, community organizing, activism, and campus outreach.

The Icarus Project is almost almost 8 years old, but we still do not have a robust and reliable constituent relationship management system.  Like many grassroots organizations, we operate on a shoestring budget and struggle to integrate/coordinate our technological infrastructure with our culture and values.

Our group has strong ties to Riseup.net, May First/People Soft, the Radical Techies community, Aspiration Tech, The Open Planning Project, and many free other software projects.  Our public facing website runs on Drupal and phpBB, and is hosted at MayFirstPeopleSoft.

For a long time we have tried to improve our membership and funder relations, but have continued to fumble its impelmentation.

Last year we talked extensively with Charlse Lenchner, and he extended a very generous offer for us to try out DIA's Salsa system for 6 months, free of charge, in order for us to evaluate the system.  We have finally reached a concensus around moving forward with Salsa, and are hoping that we might be able to reactivate the offer for a free trial period.

Like many of our peers, Icarus has been sorely affected by the economic downturn and we need to redouble our our fundraising efforts.  We feel that Salsa is the best platform for us to work towards this, but we need to take the system for a spin in order to complete our evaluation.  Also, we need to use Salso to raise more money in order to afford using Salsa this year.

Do you think that DIA can help us?

in solidarity,

The Icarus Project